Apocalyptic Beginnings Box Set

by M. D. Massey

  But, he was grateful. Dean had just saved his life, even if he was old enough to be his grandfather or great-grandfather. Justin had been ready to call it “game over.” And then Ram Man comes along . . . He could not believe his incredible good luck. Ye-ah, Dean’s super cool for an old guy. He sort of reminded him of a modern-day cowboy: rough around the edges, weather-beaten face, cowboy boots, faded jean jacket, and extremely athletic (for an old man). Heck, he’s probably like sixty-something-years-old. He must be super tough to survive this long.

  Dean pulled into the parking lot of a small hotel, SWEET SUITES, according to the sign. Nate and Paxton closed the gate right behind them, all the while ranting and raving like they’d just won the Super Bowl.

  “Justin, how the blazes are you!” Dean shouted as he hopped out of the truck.

  “Dude, are you trying to kill me?” Justin moaned.

  “Can you walk . . . break any bones?” Dean asked.

  “Ye-ah, like only my whole body,” Justin retorted. He shoved a Frito-Lay box off him. “I’m just peachy.” It was something his mom would have said, which made him smile and then made him sad.

  “Glad to see you’re all right, son.” Dean gave him a brief smile. “The girls will take a look at you and patch-up your scratches,” Dean said while fetching a dolly.

  Paxton and Nate were still bragging about how awesome they were. Dean ignored the two overly-amped men, carefully staying out of their way. Nate, a thin, black man looked cranked-out the way he twitched. Paxton, a thirtysomething white man, looked like a bad-ass: brawny and full of muscles, a shaved head, tats, and a stone-cold glare.

  “So, what’s up with those two? Did you break them out of prison or what?” Justin snapped, checking out the bruises on his arms that were already turning purple.

  “They do seem jaded, don’t they? You might want to steer clear of them as much as possible. They’re from Stockton. Met up with them on Interstate 80, here in Vacaville last month.”

  Justin looked nervously back at them. “I think they’re gangers. They look and talk super tough,” Justin whispered.

  “Well, whoever they were before, now they’re just one of us . . . people trying to survive. Still, I’d watch my back if I were you,” Dean whispered back.

  Justin helped unload the trucks, stacking the boxes by size. He suddenly realized how relieved he was to find people. The insane isolation had driven him to the point where he could no longer tell reality from fiction or pure madness. His mom had always nagged him to stop watching all those horror movies. He wished he had. His vivid imagination didn’t need any help. All he ever saw were Zs eating people, even when he closed his eyes.

  Justin took in a deep breath of relief and eyed the perimeter. “Nice fence. You guys do that?” Justin asked.

  “You betcha. It’s one of the first things I did once we decided to set up camp here. Though, it’s only a crude fence. Sunk a few posts in the ground along with cement from the Home Depot, strung-up the barbed wire . . . and there you have it. ’Course, it won’t keep out actual living people, but it’s kept out the dead-heads.” Dean paused and rubbed his chin. “After today’s episode, I’m not so sure. It won’t keep out that mob we encountered today. Wasn’t planning on that.” Dean shook his head.

  “So like, how long have you guys been here?” Justin asked. Will they let me stay here?

  “Since the end of August. Came from Winters and picked up a couple of strays along the way. LuLu and Ella. Found them trapped in a van on Interstate 505 in dire need of a rescue—just like you.”

  “Why here?” Justin wondered.

  “Good question. Came to Vacaville to find out what was going on since the electricity had been out for a while, besides I needed to stock up on supplies. Had no idea things were this bad. Found the town deserted except for the dead-heads. Planned on returning to my cabin. But, the girls refused to leave. And I couldn’t rightly leave them to fend for themselves, now could I?” Dean explained.

  Justin nodded in agreement.

  “The hotel’s small enough to defend and close to the highway, so I can keep my eyes and ears open for military or survivor activity. The parking lot surrounds the hotel, so it’s easy to guard. Yep, it meets our needs just fine: big kitchen, dining room, a couple of conference rooms, which we use for storage, adequate generator power, and its own well water supply. We even have a gym,” Dean said, slapping Justin on his shoulder. “In case you want to bulk up.”

  Justin faltered as they approached the hotel with the overloaded dolly. “Ye-ah, but all those windows . . .”

  “We’ve got things under control. Walk with me.” Dean motioned toward the hotel’s entrance. They walked through a funky maze with three sharp turns of barbed wire fencing to get to the hotel’s entrance.

  “Dude, the maze thing is super cool.” Zombies didn’t have reasoning skills, so the simple maze would probably work unless a freaking horde moshed their way through it.

  “First, those bastards have to get through this mess-of-a-maze—so far so good. See, we dern near boarded up the entire first floor. We use the rooms on the third floor. The only time we’re in any real danger is when we’re in the parking lot. Otherwise, they can’t see us,” Dean said.

  Uh, but they can smell us. Doesn’t Dean know that? Justin wondered, but he decided not to worry Dean about it.

  “I’ll introduce you to Ella and LuLu. Funny thing, LuLu was my waitress back in Woodland. Just a heads-up, Ella doesn’t talk. Most likely she can—she just doesn’t. Must have seen something awful,” Dean said sadly.

  Right on cue, the two women greeted Justin and Dean inside the lobby.

  “Ladies, this is Justin. He likes riding around in the back of my pickup.”

  “LOL.” Justin smirked.

  Ella and LuLu scurried about. LuLu fluffed a pillow on the lobby’s couch. “Have a seat, hon,” LuLu’s raspy voice demanded, “while I tend to your cuts. It looks like you were in quite a battle. Who won?” she teased.

  “I think the boxes did.” Justin grimaced and plopped on the couch, enjoying the attention; he hadn’t seen an actual non-dead person in over a month.

  LuLu checked out his bruises and dabbed his scratches with a cotton ball of ointment. She was kind of pretty with dishwater blonde hair. She reminded him of a retro biker chick from the 70s adorned with light-blue eyeshadow and thick-black eyeliner.

  “Awesome tat,” Justin complimented, admiring the cool skull and roses tramp stamp coiling up her arm.

  “Thanks, I used to love it—before people started eating each other.”

  Dean seemed to watch in amusement. “So LuLu, you think he’s gonna live?”

  “If he makes it through the night. You know what they say. Those first twenty-four hours are always the most critical,” LuLu joked back.

  Ella inched up to him and silently handed him an ice-cold bottle of Coke.

  “Awesome.” Justin grinned. Ella sort of smiled and then scampered behind the lobby desk like a skittish kitten. He’d never really been into girls, but he thought the Hispanic girl was absolutely adorable. She was about sixteen with the cutest pixie haircut, a small turned-up nose, and the hugest brown eyes ever.

  Ella reminded him of his mom’s favorite singer. What was her name, Rhonda something . . . Mom would love this girl, he thought wistfully. Ahh, Linda Ronstadt. He could almost hear one of her belted-out ballads playing in the background along with the busy sounds of Mom cooking dinner. The melancholy brought him back down to earth a moment too soon, and he caught himself before his eyes got all glassy and leaky. That was a long time ago—this is now.

  10

  Dean Wormer was relieved Justin wasn’t badly hurt. Overall, it had been a good day; he’d found a new source of food and saved a young man’s life. What more could a fella ask for?

  “Do I smell food?” Justin perked up from his relaxed position on the couch. “I’m starving.”

  “Follow me. Dinner’s at six o’clock sharp,” Dean sai
d. “Don’t know what Ella was able to come up with. We’re dern near out of everything—’cept a few canned goods. But she always manages to whip-up something tasty.”

  Justin and LuLu followed Dean into the hotel’s dining room. “Wow-y wow wow, these plates are fancy,” Justin said, plunking himself into a chair at the fabulously set-table. “Is the Queen coming for dinner?” Justin exaggerated.

  “Ella always sets a formal table for dinner. She’s funny that way. Guess it’s just her thing.” LuLu shrugged.

  Justin practically drooled over the overly-stuffed pot pie Ella placed in the center of the table. She disappeared into the kitchen, returning with a basket piled with homemade biscuits, piping hot, just sitting there ready to eat.

  Justin reached for a biscuit as Dean announced, “And now for a moment of thanks.” Justin’s hand wavered over the biscuits. He snatched his hand back and stared at the food. The kid could hardly wait for the Amen, so Dean kept it short and sweet. “Dig in folks—Justin might conk out on us at any moment. When’s the last time you ate, son?”

  Justin nodded at Dean but didn’t say a word, his cheeks bulging with a mouthful of biscuit.

  “Where’re you from? What’s the latest news about the flu? Are you with friends—” LuLu could hardly contain herself.

  “LuLu,” Dean interrupted. “Let the boy eat. Then he can give us the scuttlebutt.”

  The room was filled with metal spoons clanging against fine bone china. Meanwhile, everyone pretended not to watch Justin stuff his face. “Son, it helps to actually chew the food before you swallow it,” Dean ribbed. To his surprise, Ella giggled. Then he noticed the fleeting eye contact between Justin and Ella. Very interesting, Dean thought.

  “Did you send Paxton and Nate on another run?” LuLu asked.

  Much to Dean’s dismay, the Stockton Boys had made a big “to do” over a particular box they had hauled in. Dean hadn’t been pleased when he recognized the Johnnie Walker logo. Those two would be shitfaced before they were done with dinner. Looks like I’ll be hauling the rest of the cargo myself. Well, what else was he going to do?

  “Banned them to the second floor,” Dean muttered. “We won’t be seeing much of them the next few days.”

  LuLu frowned knowingly.

  “What’s up with Paxton and Nate?” Justin finally spoke.

  “Let’s just say those two have a drinking problem. You might want to avoid the second floor,” Dean advised. He was all too familiar with the Stockton Boys’ routine. Whenever they found alcohol—it didn’t matter what it was—the two got piss-poor drunk and watched porn movies in one of the second-floor suites until their alcohol supply went bone-dry.

  Much to his chagrin, LuLu joined them on occasion. Although, she’d been avoiding those two the past week. Something must have happened the last time they caroused together. Paxton and Nate had a tendency for violence, but from what he’d seen LuLu could take care of herself. She was a tough cookie, used to hard times and rough men. No, he didn’t need to worry none too much about her; it was Ella who worried him. Ella was such a young, sweet, innocent girl. He had absolutely forbidden the Stockton Boys from laying a hand on her.

  Dean winked at Ella. “I swear that boy ate six biscuits,” Dean joshed.

  Ella giggled.

  “Eight,” LuLu corrected. “All right already, I’m dying to know what’s happening out there?” LuLu begged.

  Justin opened his mouth to answer; instead, an elongated belch escaped. “So sorry. My mom would have killed me for that.”

  They all got a hearty laugh out of it, but the sadness lingered in the young man’s eyes when he had mentioned his mom.

  “Guys, Mr. Ram Man is my new superhero.” Justin pointed to Dean. “He saved my sorry ass.”

  “Ram Man?” LuLu questioned with arched brows.

  Dean shook his head. “A bunch of malarkey. So, what’s your story, son?”

  “I don’t know where to begin?” Justin seemed overwhelmed.

  “Might as well start from the beginning. It’s not like we don’t have the time,” Dean said.

  “Well, I was hanging out with my new BFF, Parker, when things started going cray-cray. We had two IT classes together at UC Davis last semester, and we were working on our awesome app idea.”

  “Excuse me, what’s an app?” Dean interrupted.

  “It’s one of those thingys you download to your cell or iPad, so you can do things . . .” LuLu answered impatiently.

  “Now, that really explains it,” Dean grumbled, completely perplexed.

  “Go on,” LuLu urged.

  “I was supposed to go to Florida with my parents for our annual family quality-time vacay thing we do—did every summer. I got out of it by telling them I had to take a summer class. But we really just wanted to build our app. Parker has—had the geekiest computer setup ever in his basement. We worked practically twenty-four seven, hella-stoned most of the time. Then I started getting these strange texts from my mom. Dad had apparently caught some weird summer flu. The next thing I know, Dad was in the ER, and Mom was sick too. She told me to take my vitamins because the summer flu was highly contagious. Then, no more texts. No phone calls. Nothing. So, like I knew something was hecka wrong.” The tears welled up around the corners of Justin’s eyes.

  “You know, the news was saying this Super Summer flu originated in Florida . . .” Dean left it at that, not wanting to say anymore.

  “Ye-ah, I found that out, later.” Justin blinked back tears. “See, the whole time I was avoiding my parents when I should have been with—with them.”

  “Son, if you’d gone to Florida, you wouldn’t be here right now. You’d most likely be one of them. Don’t go blamin’ yourself,” Dean consoled.

  “So, where’s your BFF?” LuLu asked.

  Dean butted in, “Question—what in tarnation is a BFF?”

  Ella let out a silly giggle and rolled her eyes at Justin.

  “Best Friends Forever,” LuLu rasped impatiently. “Please continue. Dean’s behind the times, as you can see.”

  “Like, we were so involved with our project and so freakin' stoned, we didn’t notice how weird things were getting. Until the day Parker’s parents didn’t come home from work. They never called or anything. Parker even tried calling the police, but he couldn’t get through. Dude, we couldn’t even get through to 9-1-1. How bad is that?”

  “What did you guys do?” LuLu whispered and leaned forward, resting her elbows on the dining room table.

  “Ye-ah, uh, we just got more stoned.” Justin looked embarrassed. “We thought things were just weird because we were, you know—super-stoned. And our programming went faster than expected since our parents weren’t bugging us. But we ran out of geek food. So, we ordered a pizza on the Papa Johns’ app.”

  “You can order a pizza with an app?” Dean couldn’t possibly be more confused. “Why didn’t you phone in the pizza order?” Dean asked.

  “Dude, the phone lines were jammed. Besides, nobody uses the phone to order pizza anymore, unless you’re from the Stone Age or something.” Justin’s tone was slathered in sarcasm.

  LuLu laughed. “You hear that, Dean. You’re from the Stone Age.”

  Dean gave LuLu his best-disgruntled look and then nodded his head for Justin to continue.

  “The pizza guy never showed up, so Parker drove to Papa Johns, hoping to get a free pizza out of it.”

  “I thought an app was a computer game,” Dean interjected, still stuck on the entire app concept. Justin and LuLu ignored him.

  “And,” LuLu prodded.

  “I finally went upstairs, thinking Parker decided to eat the whole pizza by himself. Heard some crazy screaming outside, so I opened the front door to see what the heck was going on. Dude, it was like freakin’ World War Z. You know, the movie.” He nodded to Dean.

  Dean shook his head. He didn’t know a thing about World War Z. The changing times sure had a way of making an idiot out of him. But what did it matter to him? He�
�d been perfectly content on fishing the rest of his life away—until the world had been taken over by flesh-eaters. Somehow fate had made him responsible for protecting LuLu and Ella. Until the government sorts this mess out. Dean couldn’t wait for the day the military came to town and took things over.

  “Can I get you something, hon? You don’t look so good,” LuLu said in a worried tone.

  “No, no. I’m fine.” Dean waved his hand. He was simply tired of this whole dad-blast-it mess. “Go on, Justin,” he said, trying to ignore the pain in his chest.

  “Ye-ah, like I saw some random dude covered with blood, and there was this other guy helping him. Only he was eating his guts . . . That’s when I knew. I must have screamed, ’cause a freakin’ horde started staggering for me. I ran back inside Parker’s house, grabbed the food from the kitchen, and hauled ass to the basement. They banged on the windows for hours and eventually broke inside the house. Dude, they raved around upstairs for days.”

  Justin’s terrifying retelling had Dean thinking back to that first day everything started going batshit crazy. Dean had the notion Justin had each of them reliving their first encounters with the undead as Justin’s voice wavered higher and higher, and Dean’s heart throbbed faster and faster, and Ella’s eyes grew wider and wider, and LuLu’s face turned paler and paler. Those first few days had been hell for everyone. That is—everyone who survived. And a living hell for the unlucky ones.

  “Ye-ah, uh, never saw Parker again.” Justin’s voice faltered. He seemed deep in thought.

  “It’s a horrible thing, son. How’d you manage?” Dean felt bad for the kid.

  “I barricaded myself in the basement. And then surfed the web, trying to find out what the heck was going on. That’s when I found out about the Super Summer flu. Dude, I was so freaked, I stayed in Parker’s basement for two weeks. The power went out. Ran out of food. I just started living from house to house, searching for food and people—like you guys.” Justin gulped. “I kinda gave up.” Justin looked down at his scraped-clean plate.